Nature spirits often have a good sense of humor. I discovered one such tree living at the Log Slide, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The site has a beautiful overlook of Lake Michigan, and is a favored tourist site.
But from a tree’s perspective – it doesn’t have a very good history! This is where loggers once brought slaughtered trees – whoops – lumbered trees – by the thousands, sliding them down the tall sandy cliffs into the lake, and from there they were headed to lumberyards, to be turned into wood.
One tree, located along the path to the slide, grew its opinion of the humans doing what it clearly considered the ignorant slaughter of its compatriots. He grew a really dumb looking logger, with buck teeth. In front of him the tree grew a large size rat!
It’s interesting to look at “progress” from nature’s point of view. And to consider the ancient Native American way of first thanking the plants and trees, and the animals, for permitting someone to take their lives to sustain or protect that of a human community.
A moment of Thanksgiving before eating, or an expression of gratitude or explanation to plants in your garden as you start your weeding, is such a simple act, and yet it can have vast repercussions in your own consciousness, and in the energy of the very aware world that surrounds you at every moment of your day!